"Dr. Nicol's book is a masterpiece of careful scholarship which should remain a model of its kind. It is invaluable as an authoritative work of reference and . . . it incidentally provides a detailed (if necessarily disjointed) political narrative of much of the fourteenth century and of the last years of Serbia. . . . An awesome range of sources has been employed and a check through the more obvious chronicles, cartularies, and collections of letters and of seals reveals that nothing has been missed and, more important, that Nicol has been scrupulous in not forcing identifications upon stray Kantakouzenoi." Anthony Bryer, The Classical Review